Sometimes you find a place where the colors you see in your head are on the outside. Maui is that place for me. Pure bright colors and richly textured foliage, sparkling water and dancing sunlight everywhere. The air smells like color, the sunsets smell like flowers.

Before painting the Maui Flowers series, I took hundreds of photos of flowers, close ups of color, texture and pattern and then created collages that I used as the basis for this series. I wanted the movement of the shapes and colors to replicates the native Hawaiian island dancers in spirit and drama.

Like the rhythms of island music your eyes swirl around the undulating patterns of the leaves as they radiate out from the center. In "Euphoria" complementary color contrasts keep the beat on the underside of the leaves and sway like a grass skirt around the pulsating center.

I believe the Hawaiian islands have a deep spiritual undercurrent. In the painting "Lotus Buddha Body" the organic swirling shapes represent the mind, body, spirit connection of self realization and inter connectedness. The mind is the swirling shapes that wrap around the small fish shape body, and the spirit is the lotus flower.

I awoke to the spirit of the island that calls to the inner self to renew, and to the social spirit to rejoice. In "Euphoric Two and Koi" the placement of the fish represents the soul's solitary journey and the rhythmic flowers represent the balance of inter connectedness.

Jurassic Ginger was painted from atop a botanical garden along the road to Hana where parts of the movie Jurassic Park were filmed.